Councillor stacking tenants action group?

[Apologies. DH accidentally wrote "Mayor", when she meant only "Councillor".]

DH hears that a prominent Westie Labor councillor has managed to fill up a local public housing tenants action group with his adoring proteges, and taken over the executive, while the people who reckon they actually did the work have given up in disgust. Reportedly, neither their auspicing agency, not DoH are interested. How did Councillor X do it, and whyever? Based on Anthrop 101, DH can only guess that Arab politics runs on a patronage system, stoked by handing out favours to the faithful and loyal, as opposed to an elected meritocracy. Not that an elected meritocracy inevitably delivers merit that often either, but at least there is something inherently more progressive in the idea than voting for the most powerful sheik in the area. If you believe in progress, that is. And if you don't believe in divine intervention, you gotta believe in progress after all.